Charcoal on White Paper
There is that first stroke
The one that hits the keyboard
The one that breaks
the solid blue foreverness of the swim lane
The one that puts dark charcoal
on perfectly white paper.
A river courses then
past the ennui
past procrastinating to the
Goddess of “But I just can’t now you know…”
There’s muscle spirit bone and tendon
On blending blues and drenching paper.
I dive into my liquid paper landscape
Head first and rise head first
Birth position, craving breath
My flesh cools to this new world
Warms to its own blood.
Its not possible now to stop
until the shore
Until the edge,
until the fire is brought
safely to land
and the words brought to flames
Until the white is revealing no longer virginity
But canvassing the stream of life.
Every stroke is your face in that frame these many years since--
I a girl child walking
defiant around my dad’s casket
Match in hand;
Every smudge another erasure
of harsh words and stinging pain of maternal wrath
Every kick another length away from the words “You never will”
“You never will finish
You never will accomplish
You never will….
You are a jack-of-all-trades,
master of none.
You never will.”
When I see the luxury of journals
Dating back to when a pencil was first held
I have to swallow rage that is chemical.
When I am with those that scale their walls
And write exits from all that kills
To enter their creation
I swim again
free in the water
that always freed me
I write again
in the words that make me
part of the fires
Late at night
in secret places
working in the various camps.
I draw reality
To change the world one stroke,
Head turning, muscles relaxed and active
To the next...